How do you tackle your marketing tasks?

eleonorang

Managing our brand and dealing with marketing tasks to improve our presence on- and offline can be fun and inspiring to some, but stressful and boring to others. I have heard several opinions on the matter and even learned about strategies that help you tackle this kind of activities that are so useful and needed but sometimes very hard to get on with, because they are so different from translating.

Are you a marketing lover or would you rather translate 10 hours a day than having to deal with that stuff?
Do you take care of your brand profile daily and, if yes, do you do it first thing in the morning or leave it to the end of the day because you can't stand the thought of handling it sooner?

Dmitry

eleonorang I'm not a big fan of marketing or sales or business. Sometimes I just want to be a translator. You know, allow myself to dive head first into the pristine waters of my creativity and lose myself in my work.

But, alas, this is now how it works, does it?

The firs thing I do in the morning is make sure all my clients are taken care of. Since many of them in Europe, I often wake up to dozens of emails with new projects, questions, comments, etc. Once this is taken care of, I normally switch to translation projects on hand.

If time allows I'll check out Slack and this forum, as well as TOM for new stories, comments, discussions. But I'm really strict here. I don't allow myself to spend more than 10 minutes on those side activities. Current projects and clients always come first.

If I don't have a project today, I might undertake some bigger marketing and sales tasks, like prospecting or writing blog posts or developing The Open Mic

This is pretty much how any of my days go.

Of course, sometimes I decide to take a break and just play video games all day long (I got a good justification, tough, as a video game localization specialist, I have to play video games, right?)

eleonorang

Ok, so I gather it's not something you commit to doing every day, even for just 15-30 mins? The marketing gurus of the Web would not be happy, Dmitry! Just kidding. If you feel that you've got your brand identity figured out and you are satisfied with the clients you've got, I assume that your marketing tasks are reduced to "maintenance" and that surely requires less time. And in your case, you have already so much on your hands with TOM.

I, on the other hand, still have a long way to go before I am 100% established on the Web and have committed to doing 1 hour of marketing/CPD a day, and I even managed to maintain that commitment until the beginning of March, when I somehow lost my way – but that is a whole different story.

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of marketing either, so I try to differentiate my tasks to make it less boring - and it's not hard, considering there is so much to do.

I am used to taking care of marketing at the end of a regular working day, around 6 pm, when my brain melts and I can't take any more translating However, it doesn't necessarily mean that I have enough energy to deal with marketing, which is why sometimes I neglect to do it and I am therefore considering shifting my marketing tasks slot to the morning, at the very beginning of the working day. I am not sure it would work anyway, which is why I was looking forward to learning about other people's experiences.

Dmitry

eleonorang And in your case, you have already so much on your hands with TOM.

Oh, yeah, so many new things have been in development. It's super exciting though!

eleonorang I am therefore considering shifting my marketing tasks slot to the morning, at the very beginning of the working day

I think it's a better approach. You should never do marketing with a "melted brain" It won't yield any meaningful results!

ninagruenewald

eleonorang I, on the other hand, still have a long way to go before I am 100% established on the Web and have committed to doing 1 hour of marketing/CPD a day,

That sounds like a good idea! I must say, part of why I love the idea of working freelance is that I get bored very easily if I do the same thing for a long time. Although this does not seem to happen to me with translation, I really appreciate all the other things that I have to do.

I find marketing and designing things huge fun. My problem now is only, I don't know where to start. I saw a wonderful talk at the London Language Show last year about branding yourself. I would love to have a nice design for a website, business cards, invoices, cv, blog, all fitting together somehow. But I don't know where to start and have commitment issues, haha. I cannot even decide for a name for a domain or email address or "company"...

eleonorang

Dmitry I think it's a better approach. You should never do marketing with a "melted brain" It won't yield any meaningful results!

I have already implemented it and it's yielding better results It's also more fun, for some reason

VovaZk I don't think you're a weirdo In fact it's proven that different people have different levels of energy at different times of day. It's just the way we are. I've never been productive when working evenings whereas I give my best in the morning

VovaZk

I split tasks by times of the day. Mornings works best for tedious tasks, evenings for creative ones. Usually (but not always) "marketing" falls under the second category. I don't know why, but my brain does not "melt" (as Dmitry has put it) in the evening, but, on the contrary, is re-energized. But I'm a weirdo.

Dmitry

VovaZk I often feel re-energized in the evening too, it's weird and very inconvenient, because my wife is back from work, and I simply cannot work in the evening So I have to figure out how to do everything before 5 pm

Dmitry

eleonorang I've never been productive when working evenings whereas I give my best in the morning

Do you have a morning ritual before starting work? Like shower/coffee/tea/biscuits/ first and then work?

eleonorang

Dmitry No rituals in particular, no yoga routine and stuff, but see, I love food: sometimes my stomach in the morning wakes me up because it is hungry. It's worse than having a dog or a cat that wakes you up for the same reason, because you can't just ignore it You feel that spark (or fire!) in your belly and those voices in your head that say "cookies" "milk" "coffeeeee" and then "pancake" and "pie" and... well...yeah, I definitely need to have a calm and proper breakfast before I get to work, or I won't feel like the day has begun What about you?

Dmitry

eleonorang Same thing here! So you're not alone, @eleonorang! I really need my coffee and cookies (or muffin or apple pie) before I can start working. But I DO think I need to come up with healthier alternatives

ninagruenewald

eleonorang I love food: sometimes my stomach in the morning wakes me up because it is hungry.

Haha, excellent. I love how you say that you stomach is hungry as if it was a thing separate from you! It is hungry, not you

eleonorang

@ninagruenewald To avoid getting bored while doing marketing, I dedicate each day of the week to different marketing tasks: Monday is for reading, Tuesday is for Social Media, Wednesday is for my website promotion, Thursday is for CPD and studying, and Friday is for webinars and courses!

ninagruenewald But I don't know where to start and have commitment issues, haha. I cannot even decide for a name for a domain or email address or "company"...

There is so much to know about branding! The sooner you start reading stuff and documenting yourself, the better.... or you could just invest money in it and charge a personal branding agency or a professional with designing your branding image!

ninagruenewald

eleonorang I dedicate each day of the week to different marketing tasks

Oh, that is a great idea! I think I will give that a try as well! I don't think I count CPD, webinars and courses into marketing. How do you? Or do you take courses on marketing?